VisionBridge VR is an interactive, game-like virtual reality platform designed to assist young adults aged 18 to 29 who face social challenges, particularly those associated with social anxiety. This innovative platform is dedicated to emphasize the importance of making eye contact during communication, and encourage people to reducing gaze avoidance.This approach not only facilitates practical skills development and personal growth in a non-clinical, game-based setting but also aims to enhance positive social outcomes for individuals with social anxiety.
When communicating with strangers, I often avoid eye contact out of fear of negative outcomes and judgments, which in turn hampers my ability to engage in conversations with them. This experience of fear and anxiety in face-to-face interactions is not unique to me. Like many others who struggle with social anxiety, I find it challenging to initiate and maintain conversations, feeling sidelined in group settings without fully understanding the reasons. As a passive person who is not good at socializing, I often wish I could receive some guidance or hints in social situations to help me socialize better. I don’t know what scientific treatment methods to use to address my social anxiety. Consulting a psychologist is very expensive, and so are the medications they prescribe.
Therefore, I think creating a free game that incorporates some psychological concepts is a great option. It can allow users to overcome their anxiety and improve their social skills in a low-cost way. This game aims to offer individuals with social anxiety a more fitting way to forge friendships, embodying vision of how social interactions should be structured. It includes inclusive cues and offers a platform to practice social skills, catering to those who find group interactions daunting and making friends challenging, both online and offline.
As someone who have social anxiety, I designed VisionBridge VR from my own experiences. To start, I designed the system architecture and user flow of the game platform, which consists of three main components: onboarding & tutorial, practice exercises, and feedback evaluation. Users begin with scientifically based eye contact tutorials, proceed to apply these skills in simulated social scenarios, and finally receive feedback. Building VisionBridge VR required resources such as coding, using Unity to develop the VR game, and creating character and scene setups. I decided to utilize resources from the Unity Asset Store for characters and scenes, and I combined my knowledge of C# with GPT- 4 to write the necessary code.
The user flow begins with the user’s entry into the VisionBridge VR and being introduced to their personal AI companion, who guides them through the platform. From onboarding, the user can go to “Educational Tutorial” where they learn nonverbal communication—eye gaze basics. After that, user can practice learned skills in simulated social scenarios.
Entry into the game and introduction must be carefully considered as I need to ensure that players with social anxiety feel comfortable and free from stress and fear during onboarding—an intuitive entry point for the user. Thus, I conducted extensive research to determine animal character would guide users without triggering their aversion or intensifying their anxiety.
A start screen is essential in games as it displays the most necessary information and creates a first impression to attract players. To make players feel free and unpressured, my start screen features a design of an expansive sky scene, composed of chill colors like orange and blue. Accompanied by three main game function buttons: Start, Credits, and Quit, the layout is very clear at a glance.
Through the start screen, players are safely onboarded into “home” scene, which is a bedroom. The layout is designed to be cozy with soft lighting. In this scene, there are no people, only our AI guide & companion: the paladin owl. Owls have long been associated with wisdom and knowledge in various cultures. This cultural resonance can make the owl a compelling and meaningful choice for users from diverse backgrounds, potentially enhancing the universal appeal of VisionBridge VR. This can enhance the user’s trust in the AI’s guidance and feedback where the owl acts as a wise guide, protects the player from potential harms, and helps players navigate through the game.
In home scene, players can rest alone or meditate at home to relax thoroughly. When players finish recharging, they can choose different practice scenes, including tutorials and simulated social scenarios, through the “open world” panel to practice.
Continuing with the user flow diagram, the next step leads to eye contact tutorial. This scene is still set in the player’s home, but with a new NPC, a women character who comes to visit the player’s home. The paladin owl continues to act as a guide in the tutorial part, imparting essential knowledge about eye contact communication necessary for practicing with the AI character. The player needs to successfully focus on the AI character’s face and maintain this for a set duration to receive feedback and task completion rewards from the AI character. VisionBridge VR will use the direction of the player’s head as the gaze detection direction to track the eye contact between the player and the AI character. The character will wave to the player and say “hi” if the player successfully makes an eye contact.
In the simulated practice scene, players need to make every effort to make eye contact with characters and receive their feedback. In the bar scenario, AI characters are engaged in various activities, such as dancing, drinking alcohol, chatting with friends, and eating food.
Players as someone who want to social in a bar but have social anxiety issues need to try their best to make eye contact, striving for opportunities to interact and converse with them. Success requires patience and persistence in applying the eye contact communication skills taught. During this practice, players may experience certain setbacks; some characters might not respond to the player at all or respond negatively, which is a very common outcome in social interactions. Some characters will react positively and shown as heart bumping up or thumbs up when the player is making an eye contact. Different icons indicate different emotional reactions to players’ behavior. The aim of the game is to enable players to practice making eye contact without fear, improve social skills, and accept both positive and negative outcomes without anxiety.Players as someone who want to social in a bar but have social anxiety issues need to try their best to make eye contact, striving for opportunities to interact and converse with them. Success requires patience and persistence in applying the eye contact communication skills taught. During this practice, players may experience certain setbacks; some characters might not respond to the player at all or respond negatively, which is a very common outcome in social interactions. Some characters will react positively and shown as heart bumping up or thumbs up when the player is making an eye contact. Different icons indicate different emotional reactions to players’ behavior. The aim of the game is to enable players to practice making eye contact without fear, improve social skills, and accept both positive and negative outcomes without anxiety.
In order to give player practice feedback for their performance, I designed a feedback system. The player’s performance will be recorded and shown on the “Score” panel. The system will count for the total number of times that player tries to make an eye contact, how many negative and positive feedback they received. The more eye contact they try to make, the higher the score will be since my goal is to encourage players to make eye contact with others. Once again, the paladin owl is in the scene, indicating that the place is under protected by our guardian. I want to show that our practice scene is a safe, controlled environment where users can practice and gradually become comfortable with.
Considerable effort was invested in designing realistic environments for VisionBridge VR, including a personal home and a bar scene. I worked on setting the scene with careful selection and adjustment of lighting, characters, and music to recreate the ambiance. The NPC characters’ movements, such as dancing, were well-coordinated with the music, receiving uniformly positive reviews. I successfully used the direction of the player’s head as a reference for eye contact direction, allowing for the detection of whether players were making eye contact and interacting with NPCs. My core objective was to create immersive VR scenes for players to experience, encourage them to step out for making eye contact in social interactions. Navigating the complexities of VR development, including programming, level design, lighting, and user interface design, was well-developed. The whole process of my work highlighted the importance of seamless interaction design to maintain immersion and engagement.
Looking forward, VisionBridge VR needs further improvement and refinement. Potential areas of focus include:
1) Technical improvement:
Enhance the realism of characters in VR, including the facial expressions, skin textures, and intelligence of AI characters to make them more lifelike. Additionally, incorporate external supports such as facial tracking and eye tracking to increase the accuracy of our practice sessions. Due to technical limitations and budget restrictions, the game system currently could not accurately detect and interpret body language and facial expressions. Different hardware devices in the VR ecosystem support different parts of body tracking. For example, the HTC Vive Pro Eye provides eye-tracking and Teslasuit for full body tracking. Utilizing these devices in the project will improve game experience and game quality.
Furthermore, add advanced algorithms for adaptive behavior in AI characters to improve their responsiveness to user interactions.
2) Expansion of Content: Develop more scenes to cover 18-29 years old social scenarios, provide users with a broader spectrum of practice opportunities.
3) Partnership with Authority: Partner with psychological researchers and clinicians to conduct studies on the effectiveness of VisionBridge VR’s therapeutic use, aiming to solidify its credibility and efficacy.
4) Community Building: Creating a supportive community around VisionBridge VR where users can share their experiences, tips, and encouragement, further reducing the stigma associated with social anxiety and promoting a sense of belonging. I would also like to invite therapeutics and psychologists to the platform to offer more help. I think turning this VR platform into a multi-player platform like VR Chat where users can interact with each other to practice their skills and make meaning connections is my ultimate goal.